Debian install

Hi all! Here's attached the first version of the part about the Debian install. It is inspired by the Gentoo's one. Anyone's got any objection before I commit it? Regards Gui

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?> <!-- $Revision: 1.1 $ --> <sect1 id="install.unix.debian"> <title>Debian GNU/Linux installation notes</title> <para> This section contains notes and hints specific to installing PHP on <ulink url="&url.debian;">Debian GNU/Linux</ulink>. </para> <sect2 id="install.unix.debian.apt"> <title>Using APT</title> <simpara> While you can just download the PHP source and compile it yourself, using Debian's packaging system is the simplest and cleanest method of installing PHP. If you are not familiar with building software on Linux, this is the way to go. </simpara> <simpara> The first decision you need to make is whether you want to install Apache 1.3.x or Apache 2.x. The corresponding PHP packages are respectively named libapache-mod-php* and libapache2-mod-php*. The steps given below will use Apache 1.3.x. Please note that, as of this writing, there is no official Debian packages of PHP5. Then the steps given below will install PHP4. </simpara> <simpara> PHP is available in Debian as CGI or CLI flavour too, named respectively php4-cgi and php4-cli. If you need them, you'll just have to reproduce the following steps with the good package names. Another special package you'd want to install is php4-pear. It contains a minimal PEAR installation and the <command>pear</command> commandline utility. </simpara> <simpara> If you need more recent packages of PHP than the Debian's stable ones or if some PHP modules lacks the Debian official repository, perhaps you should take a look at <ulink url="&url.apt-get;">http://www.apt-get.org/</ulink>. One of the results found should be <ulink url="http://www.dotdeb.org/">Dotdeb</ulink>. This unofficial repository is maintained by <ulink url="mailto:gui@php.net">Guillaume Plessis</ulink> and contains Debian packages of the most recent versions of PHP4 and PHP5. To use it, just add the to following two lines to your <filename>/etc/apt/sources.lists</filename> and run <command>apt-get update</command> : </simpara> <example> <title>The two Dotdeb related lines</title> <programlisting role="shell"> <![CDATA[ deb http://packages.dotdeb.org stable all deb-src http://packages.dotdeb.org stable all ]]> </programlisting> </example> <simpara> The last thing to consider is whether your list of packages is up to date. If you have not updated it recently, you need to run <command>apt-get update</command> before anything else. This way, you will be using the most recent stable version of the Apache and PHP packages. </simpara> <simpara> Now that everything is in place, you can use the following example to install Apache and PHP: </simpara> <example id="install.unix.debian.apt.example"> <title>Debian Install Example with Apache 1.3</title> <programlisting role="shell"> <![CDATA[ # apt-get install libapache-mod-php4 ]]> </programlisting> </example> <simpara> APT will automatically install the PHP4 module for Apache 1.3, and all its dependencies and then activate it. If you're not asked to restart Apache duringduring the install process, you'll have to do it manually : </simpara> <example id="install.unix.debian.apt.example2"> <title>Stopping and starting Apache once PHP4 is installed</title> <programlisting role="shell"> <![CDATA[ # /etc/init.d/apache stop # /etc/init.d/apache start ]]> </programlisting> </example> </sect2> <sect2 id="install.unix.debian.config"> <title>Better control on configuration</title> <simpara> In the last section, PHP was installed without with only core modules. This may not be what you want and you will soon discover that you need more activated modules, like MySQL, cURL, GD, etc. </simpara> <simpara> When you compile PHP from source yourself, you need to activate modules via the <command>configure</command> command. With APT, you just have to install additional packages. They're all named 'php4-*' (or 'php5-*' if you installed PHP5 from a third party repository). </simpara> <example id="install.unix.debian.config.example"> <title>Getting the list of PHP additionnal packages</title> <programlisting role="shell"> <![CDATA[ # dpkg -l 'php4-*' ]]> </programlisting> </example> <simpara> As you can see from the last output, there's a lot of PHP modules that you can install (excluding the php4-cgi, php4-cli or php4-pear special packages). Look at them closely and choose what you need. If you choose a module and you do not have the proper libraries, APT will automatically install all the dependencies for you. </simpara> <simpara> If you choose to add the MySQL, cURL and GD support to PHP the command will look something like this: </simpara> <example id="install.unix.debian.config.example2"> <title>Install PHP with MySQL, cURL and GD</title> <programlisting role="shell"> <![CDATA[ # apt-get install php4-mysql php4-curl php4-gd ]]> </programlisting> </example> <simpara> APT will automatically add the appropriate lines to your different &php.ini; (<filename>/etc/php4/apache/php.ini</filename>, <filename>/etc/php4/cgi/php.ini</filename>, etc). </simpara> <example id="install.unix.debian.config.example3"> <title>These lines activate MySQL, cURL and GD into PHP</title> <programlisting role="shell"> <![CDATA[ extension=mysql.so extension=curl.so extension=gd.so ]]> </programlisting> </example> <simpara> You'll only have to stop/start Apache as previously to activate the modules. </simpara> </sect2> <sect2 id="install.unix.debian.faq"> <title>Common Problems</title> <itemizedlist> <listitem> <simpara> If you see the PHP source instead of the result the script should produce, APT has probably not included <filename>/etc/apache/conf.d/php4</filename> in your Apache 1.3 configuration. Please ensure that the following line is present in your <filename>/etc/apache/httpd.conf</filename> file then stop/start Apache: </simpara> <example id="install.unix.debian.faq.example"> <title>This line activates PHP4 into Apache</title> <programlisting role="shell"> <![CDATA[ # Include /etc/apache/conf.d/ ]]> </programlisting> </example> </listitem> <listitem> <simpara> If you installed an additionnal module and if its functions are not available in your scripts, please ensure that the appropriate line is present in your &php.ini;, as seen before. APT may fail during the installation of the additionnal module, due to a confusing debconf configuration. </simpara> </listitem> </itemizedlist> </sect2> </sect1> <!-- Keep this comment at the end of the file Local variables: mode: sgml sgml-omittag:t sgml-shorttag:t sgml-minimize-attributes:nil sgml-always-quote-attributes:t sgml-indent-step:1 sgml-indent-data:t indent-tabs-mode:nil sgml-parent-document:nil sgml-default-dtd-file:"../../manual.ced" sgml-exposed-tags:nil sgml-local-catalogs:nil sgml-local-ecat-files:nil End: vim600: syn=xml fen fdm=syntax fdl=2 si vim: et tw=78 syn=sgml vi: ts=1 sw=1 -->